S&T Daily, Beijing, May 19th – According to SGCC, the overseas debut of China's UHV technology, Brazil’s Belo Monte Hydropower UHV Transmission Project, had a groundbreaking ceremony in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, at 22:30 on the 19th Beijing time. SGCC Chairman Liu Zhenya and Eletrobras CEO Costa Carvalho Neto attended the ceremony and announced its construction.

The project is the delivering project of Brazil's second largest hydropower station - Belo Monte, whose designed capacity is 11GW. It is the first UHV DC transmission line in the Americas and can deliver hydropower from North Brazil to the southeastern load center. In February 2014, a consortium made of 51% shares owned by SGCC and 49% shares owned by Eletrobras won the bid of Brazil's Belo Monte Hydropower UHV Transmission Project, which was the first overseas UHV DC transmission project of SGCC. In July 2014, under the witness of the leaders from two countries, SGCC and Eletrobras signed the cooperation agreement. It will construct two converters and a 2084km-long ±800kV UHV transmission line, which will be finished in the end of 2017.

According to SGCC, UHV is a major world-leading independent innovation of China. It has competitive advantages of large capacity, long distance, low loss, less land use, outstanding scale economy and network economy. It is a feasible path to satisfy the economic and social development needs of Brazil. At the same time, as the first overseas UHV DC transmission project of SGCC, the project is of great significance in bringing China's high-end technologies and equipment to the world and promoting the cooperation in economy and trade between China and Brazil.